


How the Rock Python Made Three Meals Out of One Monkey

by Minutia_R



Category: Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 12:19:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2228781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/pseuds/Minutia_R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now, on this occasion, as Kaa was sunning himself, a young monkey dropped out of a tree above him.  As thou knowest, the bandar-log have no law, but do each one what pleases him--but if they had a law, it would be this:  Thou shalt not leave well enough alone what thou mayest poke with a stick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How the Rock Python Made Three Meals Out of One Monkey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoke/gifts).



_Ikki is full of stories half heard and very badly told.  
\--Kaa the Rock Python_

Concerning Ikki the Porcupine, all the Jungle People know that he is the most fastidious eater and the greatest liar in the jungle. Mowgli knew it as well as anyone, for Baloo had taught him not only the Law of the Jungle as it concerns the wolves, but also a little bit of the law of each of the peoples of the jungle. The law of the porcupines is twofold: It is better to go hungry than to eat a yam with a spot on it, and it is better to keep silence than to tell the plain, unadorned truth.

Mowgli also knew to keep his distance when Ikki rattled his spines, for not even a leopard cares to tangle with a porcupine who does that. But a leopard lacks the powerful curiosity of a man-cub. The sound of rattling spines might mean a fight between Ikki and some meat-eater whose hunger had made him unwise, or an even more foolish grass-eater who thought his greater size entitled him to steal whatever morsel Ikki had dug up. That would be a thing to see. So Mowgli crept forward--cautiously, peeping through the undergrowth--but closer all the time. Ikki pulled his head suddenly from beneath a log and said, “Hi! Man-cub!” and Mowgli startled and fell forward onto his face.

Ikki’s nose twitched as if he would have laughed, but he brushed the dirt off his paws and spoke politely instead. “I have heard, Little Brother, that those clawless fingers of thine are nimbler than a raven’s beak. They say that thou canst weave houses just like a weaver-bird, and that thou hast drawn thorns from paws that would not come out with any amount of scratching. Indeed, if thou couldst pull that yam from where it is lodged in the dirt under yonder log--and do it without breaking the skin, which spoils the taste--I would have to admit that thou art even nimbler than I.”

Mowgli laughed outright--being less polite in those days than he would later become. Now he understood why Ikki’s spines had rattled. He had not been threatening some unseen enemy, but only shaking himself back and forth in an attempt to dislodge the yam. And if he had asked Mowgli outright to help him, doubtless he would have. But his roundabout way of asking was not to Mowgli’s taste, nor the implication that if he did help, it was because the porcupine had played on his pride and outwitted him.

“Is that what thou hast heard?” Mowgli said. “Well, for my part I am willing to acknowledge thee as nimble as I. For I have heard that the mother of all porcupines was once a man-cub like myself, cursed to assume a spiny form for her part in swindling a great zamindari out of a field he owned. And that--I have heard--is why the man-pack will never kill a porcupine, and also why you all have such delicate taste in food--for she was a girl-child, of course.”

Now Ikki’s spines began to tremble--softly, but truly in anger. “And where did you hear that?”

“From Kaa the Rock Python,” Mowgli answered. “And he, thou knowest, is the oldest and wisest creature in the Jungle, whose memories stretch farther back even than Hathi the Silent’s.”

“All that may be,” said Ikki. “And still there are stories I could tell thee of Kaa, and not all of them would be to his liking.”

“Is that so?” said Mowgli. Now, Kaa was a friend of Mowgli’s, and he had not forgotten how the great snake had saved him at the Cold Lairs. Nor had he forgotten how Kaa had humbled Bagheera, and made him ashamed twice in one night--and of all the creatures in the jungle that Mowgli loved, he loved Bagheera best. So he replied--though he knew well that Ikki’s stories were not to be trusted-- “I would hear one of these stories. And if it were amusing--why, I would dig out the yam that has given thee so much trouble.”

Ikki rattled his spines once again--briefly, to show that he did not admit that the yam had given him any trouble at all. “If thou thinkest it would amuse thee,” he said, “then I will tell it.” And he brushed the dirt from his whiskers and began.

“This happened in the long-ago days when the jungle had barely begun to reclaim the Cold Lairs, and the people of the middle heights were not so numerous as they are today. Indeed, before the day I am speaking of, Kaa had never seen a monkey before. He was basking on the bank of the Waingunga, wondering whether he was hungry enough to bestir himself just when he had found such a lovely spot in the sun--”

Mowgli laughed. “He does that, too! There may be no one in the jungle wiser than Old Flathead, but there is no one lazier, either.”

“There is a reason for that, which thou wilt learn presently,” said Ikki. “Now, on this occasion, as Kaa was sunning himself, a young monkey dropped out of a tree above him. As thou knowest, the bandar-log have no law, but do each one what pleases him--but if they had a law, it would be this: Thou shalt not leave well enough alone what thou mayest poke with a stick.”

“Assuredly, I know that,” said Mowgli grumpily. He did not like to be reminded of his own adventures with the monkey folk.

“A wise manling like thyself, how couldst thou not?” said Ikki. “But this monkey, naturally, had no more sense than he was born with, and he was born with none at all to begin with. And so, instead of doing what any prudent creature would do when he came upon Kaa in a peckish mood--namely, flee and hope that Kaa would not catch him, or if he were not fleet then stay hidden and hope that Kaa would not see him--this monkey instead dropped nearly onto Kaa’s nose and addressed him impudently.

“‘Greetings to thee, O yellow worm!’ said the monkey. ‘A fine day for clambering in the treetops, is it not? But I see that thou art too fat to climb.’

“Kaa was no less astounded than insulted by this speech, for--as I have said--he had not met the monkey folk yet and did not know their ways. Nor--and this was what particularly interested him--did he yet know whether or not they were good eating. So he answered with equal politeness: ‘A fine day and good hunting to thee, O bandy-legged bare-faced one. And what manner of creature might thou be?’

“At this question the monkey puffed out his chest and threw wide his arms. ‘I am of the bandar-log, the cleverest folk in the jungle! We have only lately arrived, but soon all will know of us, and shrink in awe at the name of monkey. Wait a little, and thou wilt be amazed at the great things we will do.’

“‘I am sure it must be so,’ Kaa answered. ‘But how mean you to do these things? Will you use your prickly hides, or your claws that stick in the throat? Or perhaps the deadly poison that is inherent in your flesh?’

“‘Indeed not,’ said the monkey, growing puzzled and impatient, ‘for we have none of these things. But we--’

“But that was all Kaa was waiting to hear. Satisfied that the monkey was unlikely to disagree with his digestion, he siezed him in his coils, devoured him in one swallow, and settled down for a nap in the sun. He was well-pleased with his day’s hunting, which had not required him to move from the spot, and decided that he approved of monkeys wholeheartedly. The creature’s words might have been rude and arrogant, but the way he had delivered himself into Kaa’s waiting mouth had been courtesy itself.”

Mowgli flopped over onto his back and blew his hair out of his face. He was growing bored with this story, which did not seem likely to embarrass Kaa in the least.

“And now I will tell thee,” said Ikki, “why it is that Kaa is so lazy, and most particularly when he has just eaten. For he always swallows his meals whole, just as he swallowed the monkey, and until they are digested they form a great lump in his stomach. His skin--which is so fine and supple--must stretch to the breaking point in order to encompass this lump, and if in his haste any hard or sharp bits of his undigested prey were to pierce it, why, that would be the end of Kaa.”

“Is Kaa, then, truly helpless once he has eaten, until he has finished digesting?” asked Mowgli, wide-eyed. “How can this be? Surely he would be a prey to everyone, and afraid to show his face in the jungle.”

“He has one defense,” said Ikki, “though he is loath to use it. If danger threatens, he can simply disgorge his meal, and deal with the interruption as decisively as ever--and more irritably, too, on account of losing his dinner. So thou canst see why the jungle folk would hesitate to intrude upon Kaa’s digestion.”

Mowgli nodded, and Ikki went on. “However, the bandar-log are not as the other folk of the jungle, and as for hesitating before doing the first thing that enters their heads, they have never heard of it. In fairness,” Ikki allowed, “the particular monkey under discussion had nothing to lose, having been swallowed by Kaa already--and furthermore, what happened next was not entirely of his devising. It just happened that a tiger was coming down to the river to drink--and there were tigers in those days, not merely the lame frog-hunters that we have today. And when Kaa smelled him coming, he thought to himself: if it comes to a fight I may get the better of this tatter-coated rascal. But then again I may get the worst, especially hampered as I am now. And as Kaa has not become the oldest creature in the jungle through lack of prudence, he coughed up the monkey and slid underneath the water just as the tiger came into the clearing.

“Now the tiger was astonished to see the stunned, slimy monkey coughed up on the river bank. ‘Aha!’ he said. ‘Here is not just drink laid out for me, but a meal as well!’ But when the monkey heard these words he shook off his stupor and ran as quick as he could up to the treetops, where the branches are too slender to hold a tiger’s weight. And once he was safe--in the way of all stupid folk--the monkey quite forgot his fear, and began to consider that he was a very bold and clever fellow for having escaped the jaws of a snake and a tiger in a single afternoon.”

“They are all like that,” said Mowgli with a laugh, “whether or not they have done anything as impressive as being swallowed by Kaa and living to tell the tale. Indeed, that was a good trick, even if it was due to luck rather than boldness or cleverness.”

“True,” said Ikki, “and if the monkey had been content with that, and more cautious of pythons thereafter, he would have had a tale to tell for many long years. But such has never been the nature of the bandar-log. Instead, what must he do but tell all his aunts and uncles and cousins and every monkey in the jungle that he can be swallowed by a rock python and come out alive. And when the aunts and uncles and cousins and every monkey in the jungle said that he could do no such thing, what must he do but offer to prove it to them?

“And so the next day, when Kaa was sunning himself on the bank of the Waingunga--and in a much fouler mood than the day before, having lost his meal, and knowing that he would have to go out in search of another one soon--the monkey dropped out of the tree in front of Kaa again. ‘Ho, yellow worm--’ the monkey began, but today Kaa was in no mood to waste time on pleasantries. He swallowed the monkey directly.

“But no sooner had he done so then from the treetops above him all around came a shower of sharp thorn-branches and hard, heavy coconuts, thrown by the aunts and uncles and cousins of the monkey, who had been waiting above for this moment. And if any of these missiles should pierce his fragile skin, why, that would be the end of Kaa. He must seek the shelter of the river, but he could not do that while his belly was distended with a meal--so once again Kaa coughed the monkey up on the riverbank and dove under the water, seething with rage.”

Mowgli shook his head and sucked his teeth. “That was not well done. It is unwise to tweak Kaa’s nose, flat as it is--and for no motive other than idle boasting.”

“And yet,” said Ikki, “if the monkey had left it at that, perhaps all would have been well with him. But he was unable to do so, any more than he could have breathed water like a fish. For not all the creatures in the jungle had seen his feat, and some still doubted that he could do what he claimed, and he would not be satisfied until every one knew of him and shrank in awe at the name of monkey.

“So on the third day, the monkey went in search of Kaa again, but he did not find him at his usual spot sunning on the bank of the Waingunga, for Kaa was hungry as well as furious, and though he takes his ease when he can, still he can hurry when he must, as thou knowest. It took half the morning for the monkey--with all his aunts and uncles and cousins hurrying alongside him in a troop--to find the rock python.

“When the monkey found Kaa, he dropped down from the trees in front of him, and shouted, ‘Good hunting to thee, O yellow worm!’ He had not prepared more of a speech than this, for he expected to be swallowed directly. But Kaa was no monkey-witted fool, to be caught by the same trick twice. Instead of seizing the monkey in his jaws, instead he slithered backwards towards a hill, where there was a large outcropping of rock above him. But the monkey was so intent on being swallowed that he followed Kaa without noticing. How could he prove his claims if the snake refused to eat him? He would be a laughingstock in the jungle!

“And then, suddenly, Kaa lunged forward and devoured the monkey in one gulp. The other monkeys let loose with their missiles on cue, but Kaa being protected by the ledge of rock, these had no effect, and the great snake settled down to digest the monkey at his leisure. Indeed, several other monkeys, who had become convinced that Kaa was no great threat, came down from the trees to try to pelt him from nearer by--and he devoured them one by one as they came. It was good hunting, and a good rest, for Kaa that day.”

“And it was a good story that thou told!” said Mowgli. “And truly, not one that I think Old Flathead would care to have repeated, though he triumphed in the end. And now--” Mowgli wriggled to the hole Ikki had been digging, and pulled the yam out with a few deft jerks. “Wilt thou admit that I am as nimble as thou art?”

“And nimbler,” said the porcupine, turning the yam around in his paws with satisfaction. “What a beauty! Not a bruise on it! Good hunting, little brother.”


End file.
